Osborne Perry Anderson - A Voice From Harper's Ferry and Later Life

A Voice From Harper's Ferry and Later Life

"Of the slaves who followed us to the Ferry, some were sent to help remove stores, and the others were drawn up in a circle around the engine-house, at one time, where they were, by Captain Brown's order, furnished by me with pikes, mostly, and acted as a guard to the prisoners to prevent their escape, which they did. As in the war of the American Revolution, the first blood shed was a black man's, Crispus Attuck's, so at Harpers Ferry, the first blood shed by our party, after the arrival of the United States troops, was that of a slave. In the beginning of the encounter, and before the troops had fairly emerged from the bridge, a slave was shot. I saw him fall. Phil, the slave who died in prison, with fear, as it was reported, was wounded at the Ferry, and died from the effects of it… The first report of the number of 'insurrectionists' killed was seventeen, which showed that several slaves were killed; for there were only ten of the men that belonged to the Kennedy Farm who lost their lives at the Ferry, namely: John Henri Kagi, Jerry Anderson, Watson Brown, Oliver Brown, Stewart Taylor, Adolphus Thompson, William Thompson, William Leeman, all eight whites, and Dangerfield Newby and Sherrard Lewis Leary, both colored. The rest reported dead, according to their own showing, were colored."

After the failed raid, Anderson went on to write an account of the events, which he named A Voice From Harper’s Ferry. The book describes the conditions that were present at the Harper’s Ferry raid, including the training, the supplies that were available, and the events that led up to the raid.

Upon the start of the Civil War Anderson became a noncommissioned officer of the Union Army. He died in Washington D.C. in 1872. He was interred at Columbian Harmony Cemetery.